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As a kid it was our tradition that my sister and I would spend the night with our Mamaw every New Year’s Eve. At midnight we would go outside and ring a bell she had that somehow disappeared the other 364 nights of the year. It was so big that it was about all we could handle.

Sara and I won’t necessarily go to bed way before midnight tonight, but from about 10:00-12:00 I’ll be sitting on the couch thinking how tired I’m going to be tomorrow. Ugh…30 years old is ancient.

I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I have a really hard time spending the night in someone else’s house. Sara and I love having people in our home, but for some reason I always feel like I’m imposing on anyone else. Again, I know that’s not necessarily the case, but that’s just how I feel…

Leave it to God to call a guy with this strange quirk to start a church in rented space! We don’t even own a place to call our own. You might think I feel weird about that, but I really don’t. I love the fact that we are a picture of the truth that church isn’t a building. And I love that we get to teach our kids that. Rose Center feels like home now, and we put our own little spin on it to make it feel like we’re not borrowing a building but that it is actually our place.

Over the next 4 Mondays before our launch, I’m going to do one post per week asking you to pray.

If you don’t know our story, we’ve been preparing, praying, & planning for the start of Arrowhead Church since early September. It’s hard to believe that we are now down to the wire! There is such a sense of anticipation and readiness to see what God has in store among our team. We’ve worked very hard to get ready for January 18. I’d be honored if you’d ask God to do what only He can do with our efforts to bring people into an authentic relationship with Him and with others.

There are still lots of details, promotion, service projects and plans to be undertaken before the first of our services, so here’s what I’d like to ask you to pray for this week: Ask God to continue to reveal His plan to us.

This week I read Isaiah 30:1 and was struck with a great sense of fear. My prayer is that in all the planning and executing through January we wouldn’t do anything that would be outside of the plan that He has for us.

John 1:1

Unless some major world crisis breaks out and I think I can solve it through the use of this blog, I’m checking out for Christmas. I’ll be back on the 29th. No blog writing or reading, calendaring, writing…nothing. Just going to enjoy my time with family.

It’s going to be a great week. I am a very blessed husband and father, extended family member of all kinds, and pastor. Eli is 17 months old and will be able to at least enjoy tearing wrapping paper this year! At 5 months last year he just laid there kinda limp while we opened his gifts…

To everyone who’s reading, thanks for taking a little time to be interested in my thoughts. I hope they’re helpful to you in some way. And to all who are a part of Arrowhead either personally, financially, or prayerfully, I am humbled that you see God in this vision. 2009 is going to be one amazing year! I am living my God-given dream, so thanks for your part in that.

Merry Christmas!

One of the greatest temptations and struggles for me through this fall has been the perceived need both by me and sometimes others for us to define ourselves based on who Arrowhead will be like or won’t be like. Are we like Northpoint, Mars Hill, Saddleback or Bethlehem? I don’t know. I’m surely no Andy Stanley, Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren or John Piper. I do know that. I do learn from all those guys. And, Morristown isn’t Atlanta, Seattle, LA, or Minneapolis. Arrowhead is called to this community, and we won’t structure ourselves to look like a place that’s in another part of the country.

(By the way…if you don’t know who any of those people are, that’s probably a good thing right now in my book!)

In a celebrity-dominated culture, Christians can sometimes be no different. We just have Christian celebrities and church celebrities. We get fascinated with all that John MacArthur says or everything that Charles Stanley writes (or choose your own favorite pastor or leader) or everything Willow Creek is doing (or choose your own favorite church).

Hear me clearly: I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. But, I sometimes think that I need to define myself and define Arrowhead based on who we’re like or not like.

One month out from launch, it sort of feels like we are beginning to find our own voice. Who has God made Arrowhead to be? I’m starting to get a feel for that, but I know it’s going to take much longer. It has been really encouraging to spend time around those He has called to lead through our initial stages because we’ve been able to identify more of who we are. I love the fact that Jesus says that a church is a representation of His body, because bodies are alive and they are unique.

I love to read. It’s odd that I can say that now because that’s not naturally how I’m inclined. For several years I’ve accumulated lots of books on the topics of faith, theology, leadership, and some others. Seminary forced me to purchase and read (or at least glance at) books, and the first pastor I served under was gracious to lead the church to offer a book allowance as part of my salary at a time when I would have just rather had the cash. He knew what he was doing, and I’m grateful for it. Books feed me as a pastor, and they should feed all of us as followers of Jesus.

In an effort to read widely and take in lots of information, though, I’ve wasted lots of time and money on books that weren’t really worth the investment. I’ve attempted the book-a-week strategy for the last 2 years, and have at times made it through them. But the end result has been that I’ve read the first 3 chapters of way too many books and gained very little from most of them. The ones that have really done the most for me have been the ones that I slowed down and read thoroughly.

So, in 2009 my plan is to dig into one book per month. I will read, highlight, meditate upon, learn all I can from these. That places a high value on choosing the right books!

I already have a few on my list. Anybody got any “must reads” that I need to add in your opinion? Topic can be anything at all. Fire away.

“Superstition and religion tell me that God responds to me. God is powerful, to be sure, but I am the real center of the universe, because God’s actions are predicated upon mine. Religion and superstition say that I can make God dance by being good, and that by being bad I can force Him from the floor. The gospel is something entirely different. The gospel says that God always leads. He is always the initiator, and his actions are always loving. The gospel says that we love because God loved us first.”

-Nate Larkin

Thanks to everyone who prayed and attended the preview service yesterday. It went great. It really does feel like things are coming together! What’s left before launch is to organize and publicize. Just a quick rundown of how a few things went yesterday.

People: The Lord continues to send great people to Arrowhead. I am so thankful for relationships that are being formed. Everyone is on board with our mission and so many are sacrificing time and finances to make this vision a reality. We’re also already getting the chance to talk to several people who are seeing real life-change through what God is doing at Arrowhead. That makes it all worth it.

Setup: We were pleasantly surprised that we got everything cleaned up, unloaded and set up in an hour and 15 minutes. Really feels like we can do it week in and week out in that amount of time. And, we can of course organize and streamline a little now that most of our equipment is purchased.

Music: Everybody is so positive about Tyler Patterson and the band. Put me at the top of that list. From the very first time I met Tyler about 4 months ago, his attitude has been that he will do whatever it takes to volunteer his time, energy and personal equipment to this vision. With that attitude, God blesses Tyler’s passion for worship. Not only do he and the rest of the guys do a great job musically, but they are leading us in worship, and that’s the main thing. I am so thankful God brought Tyler and I together.

If you are at all interested in more information about who we are or what’s going on, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. Help us in any way you can to spread the word about our January launch. And most importantly, pray.

It’s amazing, but after hundreds of years of keeping the promise of a Messiah in front of His people, God went silent for 400 years before Jesus was actually born. Generation after generation was born and died with no reminder of a Messiah other than what was already written and passed down. It was so long that when Jesus was actually born they didn’t even recognize Him.

Sadly, Christmas is a time for a lot of us when even though the world is (sort of) reminding us about the birth of Jesus, God seems silent. Whether it’s the busyness of the season or the pain of losing a loved one or some other painful Christmas memory, Christmas is a difficult time for many. And understandably so.

Whether at Christmas or any other time of year, what do we do when God is silent? The last chapter that was written down before God began His 400 years of silence gives us some great insight. That’s what we’ll be looking at on Sunday at our final preview service.

Whether God seems silent to you right now or you’re hearing Him every day, hope you can make it!